Rory McIlroy to dramatically cut down schedule after deploying swing tweaks

Rory McIlroy intends to take an axe to his 2025 schedule and the bad news for the PGA Tour is that the world No 3 may skip not only one of the $20 million ‘Signature Events’ but also the opening tournament in the FedEx Cup, the play-off series that is the cornerstone of the circuit’s calendar.

The Northern Irishman made the revelation here at Yas Links on Thursday after the first round of the HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship. Next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, where McIlroy will almost certainly pick up his sixth order of merit title, will be his 27th competitive appearance of the year and he plans to reduce this to as few as 20 – a huge cutback of more than a quarter.

“There’s a few tournaments that I played this year that I don’t usually play and that I might not play next year,” McIlroy told Telegraph Sport. “Like, I played the Cognizant [Classic] in Palm Beach Gardens, [the Texas Open in] San Antonio and the [RBC Heritage in] Hilton Head. And I’ll probably not play the first play-off event in Memphis. I mean, I finished basically dead last there this year [tied for 68 in a 70-man field], and only moved down one spot in the play-off standings.”

None of this is yet confirmed, but McIlroy’s comments will doubtless cause consternation at Sawgrass HQ. In the effort to stop top players from joining LIV Golf, the PGA Tour brought in their celebrated ‘Signature Events’ in 2023, with limited fields playing for more than twice as much as usual.

PGA needs big guns in fight against LIV

With US TV viewing figures on an alarming slide following the loss of the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson to the Saudi-backed rebel league, Jay Monahan, the beleaguered PGA Tour commissioner, needs his big guns in this elite fields and with Tiger Woods sidelined with injury, there is no bigger gun than McIlroy.

Initially, it was mandatory for the PGA Tour members to appear in these exclusive tournaments and McIlroy was actually – and incredibly unfairly – fined the ridiculous sum of more than £2 million for a late withdrawal from Hilton Head. It was, and still is, stupidly staged the week immediately following the Masters and a missed cut at the major he craves above all others saw the crestfallen McIlroy return home for his “mental and emotional wellbeing”. It was a cruel and unnecessary sanction.

FedEx would also surely be annoyed at the Tour’s inability to deliver the superstars. The courier giant has pumped hundreds of millions into the circuit in a near 20-year relationship and would be forgiven for wondering about its return on investment in this diluted age.

Perhaps this might be another reason for the Tour to reach a deal quickly with the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi £720 billion war chest that bankrolls LIV.

McIlroy would welcome peace, but he spelt out why he is scaling back. After acting as the unofficial voice of the Tour’s ultimately futile and costly battle with LIV it is time he put himself first.

“Well, at this point in my career…” Mcilroy said. “Hey, I’m 35 and have been out here for 17, 18 years, so I’m just going to go to the places that I enjoy and where I play well. Look I’ve done the hard slog, I’ve done that sort of 25 to 30 events a year. And I’m not getting any younger.”

Luke Donald, the Europe captain, would surely be pleased if his strike weapon does ditch Memphis, otherwise he could turn up at New York for the Ryder Cup next September having played in eight events in 13 weeks before the Bethpage encounter and risking burnout.

McIlroy is clearly feeling the effects of his packed year and plans to enjoy more time in his studio at home in Florida. He believes the three weeks he spent hitting balls into a blank screen with a live feed showing his swings will make him more efficient and guard against “my swing breaking down under pressure as it has done a few times this year”.

Analysis: Golfing solitary confinement to fix technique

Rory McIlroy is not the first, and will certainly not be the last, golfer whose game has driven them to locking themselves in a room to escape the range and course.

But he is undoubtedly the best and the Northern Irishman believes that the three weeks he spent in his studio with a live feed showing his swings on a TV will help guard against making the same mistakes that he thinks cost him silverware this year, including, perhaps, that elusive fifth major title.

McIlroy has revealed that he submitted himself to the golfing equivalent of solitary confinement to avoid the temptation of the usual routine of planting himself on the practice area and firing off balls into the distance.

After his last event, the Dunhill Links, he realised his five-week gap until his two-week stretch in the United Arab Emirates was the perfect moment to concentrate on the motion and not the result.

“In those three weeks, I didn’t go outside and hit balls and look at my ball-flight at all,” he said. “I just worked on technique and getting my swing back to where I want it. What I’d really like is to build in a 10-12 week close season, but that’s not happening at the moment with everything the way it is.”

‘My swing let me down at critical points’

McIlroy said he felt “unimaginative” in his first-round 67 at the HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship, which left him on five-under and five behind the leader, his Ryder Cup partner, Tommy Fleetwood. “But I was hitting very straight shots,” he added.

And that is exactly what he wanted as he went through his pre-shot routine of bringing the club back on the outside of the swing with a quarter of its normal take-back.

“I’ve quickly become comfortable with doing this little rehearsal before I take the club back, so it felt fine,” he told Telegraph Sport after a round including six birdies and only one bogey. “During the year, when you are going event-to-event, you practise more based on the performance of what you’re trying to do rather than purely technical.

“So you hit draws, fades, think left pins, right pins, hitting shots, hitting your numbers and all that. That’s more performance than the technical stuff. And if you can do your best to separate them, at least for me, that’s what works well.

“I’m quite fortunate that this is a nice week to come back after my break because there’s not too much wind and it’s pretty wide off the tee. So I feel like I can concentrate a little bit more on what I’m trying to do with the movement.”

McIlroy listed a few shots this year in which his “motion failed under pressure”. “Yeah, there was a missed putt at the US Open [where he lost by one to Bryson DeChambeau],” he said. “And even though I got away with it with an up and down, I missed the green on the 17th there [at Pinehurst] when I really shouldn’t have. There was Wentworth [in the BMW Championship when he lost in a play-off to Billy Horschel] and the week before at the Irish Open [where he lost by one to Rasmus Hojgaard].

“I played well in both, but my swing let me down at critical points. So the work I’ve done locked in that studio will hopefully make me more efficient and I’ll ensure I do some more during December and January before I play on Tour again.”